(Bobigny) Two men were sentenced Wednesday in Bobigny, a Paris suburb, to 12 and 18 months in prison for the theft of pieces from the Balmain collection before Fashion Week in September 2023.
Aged 23 and 25, they were tried in immediate appearance – a simplified procedure which allows the alleged perpetrator of offenses to be judged quickly – before the Bobigny criminal court, alongside a 24-year-old young man acquitted of complicity in flight.
Three other men, who were also due to be tried on Wednesday, were granted a postponement at the request of their lawyers and will be tried on March 13.
In mid-September, a van transporting pieces from the new collection of star stylist Olivier Rousteing was attacked between Roissy airport and the headquarters of the luxury house in Paris by armed people who had fled.
Following this unprecedented affair in the fashion world, the Balmain team worked “day and night” to remake the lost pieces.
The parade, exuberant and flowery, was able to be held as planned 11 days later at the Chaillot theater with a view of the Eiffel Tower.
The material damage is estimated at 595,162 euros (875,900 Canadian dollars) by Balmain, taking into account the market value, the cost of remanufacturing and especially the loss of turnover compared to previous seasons. Added to this are some 50,000 euros (nearly 73,600 Canadian dollars) in moral damage.
“At the time of the show, there are all the buyers from all over the world who get an idea of the collection when they see it,” François Bizet, Balmain’s lawyer, explained to AFP. “The consequences of acts of this type are enormous,” he insists.
The defendants were arrested in mid-January, after four months of investigation by the Seine–Saint-Denis judicial police. Among the men fired is a former employee of DHL’s subcontracted delivery company.
During the three-hour hearing, the defendants strongly denied having been involved in the robbery.
What about his DNA found in the stolen car? “Maybe I was in it, I don’t remember,” he says.
The second defendant admitted to stealing the sedan in exchange for luxury clothes. Pieces from the parade were found at his home.
Their sentences of respectively three years including 18 months of probationary suspension, and three years including two years of probationary suspension, are well below the requisitions.
The prosecutor had asked for six and five years in prison with continued detention against them.